


Prologue

by Abacura



Series: Fulcrum [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Aromantic Asexual CT-7567 | Rex, Gen, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28642965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abacura/pseuds/Abacura
Summary: Clones weren’t supposed to have soulmates.
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex/Ahsoka Tano
Series: Fulcrum [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099046
Comments: 6
Kudos: 155





	1. Rex

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EyeofMazikeen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EyeofMazikeen/gifts), [Starofwinter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starofwinter/gifts).



Clones weren’t supposed to have soulmates.

It was common knowledge. Hell, it was in their genes. They were designed to not have soulmates. Jango Fett hadn’t had a soulmate, hadn’t needed a soulmate, so neither would any of them. This didn’t bother any of the clones. Why would you want something that none of your brothers had, that no one you’d ever known had? Why would anyone want to be different, to be defective? Clones who were defective got scrapped.

It’s why Rex always showered with his back to the wall. 

Some of his old squadmates knew about Rex’s… birthmarks. Which is all they were. A minor physical mutation here and there was generally tolerated by the Kaminoans, as long as it didn’t interfere with a clone’s performance, but if your performance was suboptimal, then anything that made you stand out was like painting a target on your back. 

So Rex took great pains to make sure as few people as possible saw the target on his. He worked hard. He followed orders. He excelled both in his training and on the battlefield. He bleached his hair so that no one would look too hard or too close at the other ways in which he stood out from his brothers.

Rex tried not to look too hard either. It was a big galaxy, and even though he’d likely see a lot of it over the course of the war, he mostly just interacted with his brothers, enemy droids, and the Jedi. If the marks on his back meant anything, if they matched anyone else’s out there in the galaxy, he’d probably never know.

Which was why Rex was so startled to meet General Skywalker’s new padawan on Christophsis. She was a togruta. What were the Jedi thinking, sending such a young kid to the front lines? Then again, she might very well be older than he was. But that didn’t matter. She was reckless, stubborn, and never failed to remind Rex that despite her lack of experience, she outranked him. 

She was constantly getting into trouble, and Rex was always there to bail her out. He couldn’t help it. He was grateful every day that he was under General Skywalker’s command. He didn’t want to think about what he’d do if he was ever transferred away from the 501st.

Away from Ahsoka.

It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t the way it was portrayed in the bad holovids the bounty hunters who’d trained them had smuggled onto Kamino. He didn’t want anything like that from Ahsoka. Absolutely not. She was a kid, for crying out loud, and Rex would rip anyone who even thought such a thing about her limb from limb.It wasn’t like that, not at all.

But she was important to him. So important that years into the war, when General Skywalker told him that Ahsoka had been arrested, Rex immediately started planning to break her out and couldn’t understand why the General wasn’t on board. She was his padawan, wasn’t she? She needed him, she needed both of them, they had to do something! When she escaped, they had to find her, to help her! Why wouldn’t the general let him help her? This was Commander Tano after all! He trusted her with his life! 

The first battle after Ahsoka left the Jedi, left the Grand Army of the Republic, left him, Rex felt lost. For nearly the whole war, it hadn’t been just the Republic he’d been fighting to protect, not just the lives of his brothers he’d been trying to save. But that should be enough. It _had_ to be enough. And he convinced himself it was. Every day he got up and reminded himself that this war was bigger than him, and it was bigger than her. He had a job to do. 

When Rex got word that Commander Tano would be returning for one last mission, he tried not to let his emotions show. Luckily, the rest of the boys were excited to have the Commander back as well, so excited that they broke out some paint and started painting their helmets to honor the Commander’s Return. By the time Ahsoka stepped foot on the cruiser, half of the 501st had painted Ahsoka’s markings proudly across their helmets.

Rex hadn’t done the same. Something stopped him. He was happy to see her again, he was. Overjoyed, really. Complete, in a way he hadn’t been since she’d left. But those marks meant something else to him. 

They weren’t just her marks. They were _theirs_. And he’d spent too long hiding his to be able to just paint them across his helmet like it was nothing. He wished he could, though. He wished he could show her how much he cared, tell her in this one small way. But he can’t even do that.

She’d grown up so much since she left, and Rex had missed it. He promised himself, then and there, that he wouldn’t miss another minute. He was a good soldier, he’d do his job well, but he was not letting their paths diverge again.

He needed her. He needed her in the same way he needed the war: to give him a purpose, a direction. Without her in his life it was like the gravity had been switched off and he didn’t know which way was up anymore. And with the war ending, he didn’t know where his path would lead. Would the Republic still need soldiers like him?

He hoped Ahsoka would.

Maybe he couldn’t tell her what she meant to him. That she meant more to him than he could ever say. He could at least protect her, make sure no harm ever came to her. Especially from him.

In the end, those feelings bought her a second, maybe two. Just a single moment of hesitation where every cell in Rex’s body was at war with itself. And it was enough. This time, she saved him.

Maybe it was always going to end like this. Maybe that’s why Rex was born the way he was: different. He’d never liked being different from his brothers. But as he stood there with Ahsoka, preparing to fight and kill his own flesh and blood, his family, knowing that everything that made them who they were as individuals, as men, had been stripped away so completely, so _easily,_ he knew this was how it was supposed to be. It hurt. It hurt in a way he knew would never, ever stop. But Rex chose her. He chose her when he raised his blasters against his brothers. He chose her when he buried the men he’d sworn to protect. He was always going to choose her.


	2. Ahsoka

Ahsoka always assumed she had a soulmate somewhere out there in the galaxy. Nearly all Togruta did, after all. In this day and age, most Togruta even managed to find their soulmates. It was easy to cross-reference your facial markings, after all. But Ahsoka hadn’t done so. Because she wasn’t just Togruta. She was a Jedi. And for a Jedi, attachment was forbidden.

Not that having a soulmate meant you had to get attached. Every culture had their own interpretation, but the Jedi taught that your soulmate was a person brought to you through the will of the Force, often to teach you something you needed to learn and that only they could teach you. Or perhaps you were destined to perform a great service for them, or teach them something valuable.

Plenty of Jedi had soulmates, after all. One could have a soulmate without becoming attached. You simply had to be grateful to the Force for bringing this person into your life when you needed them the most, learn all you could from the experience, and then let them go. They were fleeting gifts, not enduring possessions. So even though Ahsoka wondered who her soulmate was, impatiently waited for the day the Force would reveal them to her, she resisted the temptation to go looking for them. Patience was the Jedi way. And she was a Jedi.

Or at least, she had been.

After everything that had happened since her expulsion from the Jedi Order, Ahsoka hadn’t given much thought to finding her soulmate. There were more important problems to tackle, after all. Like surviving. And keeping her new friends out of trouble. And getting herself back _into_ trouble, apparently. But she encountered very few other Togruta in the underworld of Coruscant and beyond, so it didn’t really enter her mind until she was back aboard Anakin’s Jedi Cruiser, preparing to help Bo-Katan take down Maul. Until she saw Rex and his men, all holding freshly painted helmets with her markings on them. Clones didn’t have soulmates, so maybe none of the boys knew the significance, but to her the message was clear.

_We’ve needed you back with us as much as you’ve needed us._

It meant a lot to her, probably more than the boys knew. So it hurt all the more when they turned on her.

She didn’t even stop to think about who she choose to save. It was Rex. No other option even crossed her mind, and there was no time to ponder why. The same way she didn’t stop to think about it when she gently placed both her hands on Rex’s head and prayed. Prayed for answers, prayed for a way out, prayed that she could save him, even if she couldn’t save herself or anyone else on this ship. Saving him would be enough. She was scared, but in that moment the fear melted away, and everything felt right. It was just her and Rex. She’d never used the Force on him before, but his mind felt so familiar, so much so that it was easy to isolate the bit of his mind that’s new, that’s wrong, and light it up for removal. That was not him.

Removing her hands and her mind from Rex felt like leaving a warm, safe, familiar room and venturing back out into the cold. But she had to protect him, even if it was from their own troops. But she couldn’t protect him from what it all meant. She couldn’t protect him from the realization that his brothers _would_ kill him if he chose to help her.

She’d never seen Rex cry before. She’d never seen any clone cry, for that matter. And it feels so wrong. Rex shouldn’t be crying. He was always so strong and sure and confident, even when he was hurting inside. He was always the rock she could lean on when things went wrong. But now it was her turn to be that rock, because if it felt like her world was crashing down around her, she couldn’t even imagine what it must feel like for Rex.

They gave every soldier they could find a proper burial. They deserved that much at least, that final honor. It wasn’t their fault. They were good men right up until the end. What they did in their final moments, that wasn’t them. Ahsoka told herself that again and again, but her markings, still freshly painted on the helmets of her fallen men, felt like the cruelest joke in the galaxy.


End file.
